This week’s community safety blog will be a load of rubbish, nothing new there some may say, well I can live with that if it is helping or supporting the local community in a practical way. The Tamfourhill Community Hub is now a Clean Up Scotland National Hub, and you can now borrow a full litter picking kit from the Hub. If you want to organise you own litter pick , whether as a group, on your own, with your family and friends or through a club or organisation that you are involved with that’s what the gear is for. Please contract myself at Communitysafetyengager@tamfourhilltro.co.uk or give me a call on 07391524528 and I will arrange the booking and go through the process for picking up the gear and explaining everything you need to know. I am waiting on Falkirk Council finishing their littering plans and when that is done, I will also be able to cover your activities with Public Liability insurance. This is a chance for everybody to play a part and assist with keeping our communities Tidy Clean and Green.
This is how we can change a Grot Spot to a Creative Spot
Here is how we can change places from Grot Spots to Reclaimed Green zones
This is one aspect of the campaign: to clear the area of rubbish, fly tipping and dog pooh, the other important strand is the reclaiming of badly kept and messy grot spots. The plan is to convert them into green zones and community growing places. We have plans for wildflower meadows, pop up parks, allotments, and growing zones. I will leave Dan to explain that in his Thursday blog and how it fits with the Keep Camelon and Tamfourhill Tidy, Clean & Green campaign.
Traffic and roads is one of the key community safety themes and as the link above illustrates speeding cars and a lack of safe crossing locations are a notable concern for the local community. During the COVID lockdown people have enjoyed taking to the streets on foot, bicycle, skateboard and scooter and the clean air and quieter roads have had many health and well being benefits. The development of our local community safety strategy will be required to create and sustain this new social and health positivity. A possible and very practical means of achieving this would be for Camelon and Tamfourhill to become Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. This may mean roads being closed for periods of the day, for example outside local schools so that overtime there is a culture change where we no longer expect there to be motor vehicles within a given distance from any school. As the wearing of seat belts and drink driving are no longer considered to be sociably acceptable so will the presence of cars near schools be expected or allowed. The benefits are many , the safety of our children and young people and a reduction on the school car run and its environmental damage, healthier parents and children as walking and cycling become the new school run.
Consider how you and your family could benefit from a living in a Low Traffic Neighbourhood.
In my role as community safety engager I have been invited to participate in regular multi agency discussions chaired by the Leader of Falkirk Council Cecil Meiklejohn , this will put various local community safety issues onto the agenda and in particular the issue of road safety and traffic management will be a priority consideration for this Group. As always my focus will be to put the community at the front and centre of any new safety initiatives, so please watch this space for opportunities to be involved with shaping particular plans and actions.
Often our problems are ones of perception and if we change the view then we can change the narrative. I therefore would propose that instead of putting up big aggressive signs that say a road or street is closed that we put up cheerful signs that exclaim the road or street is open to : walking, cycling, skateboarding , wheel chair access and just about any form of sports, games and exercise, this below is the kind of signage that I am talking about:
My colleague Dan was recently highlighting the Road Safety Trust who will provide funds for councils and communities to devise, plan and implement improvements to road safety and this could be one avenue we pursue locally in order to improve road and traffic safety.
I want to finish this week on a high note and ask you to consider what it might be like if we began to transform our neighbourhood into a Low Traffic neighbourhood. I have touched before on pop up parks and reclaiming green zones for community planting as part of the Keep Camelon and Tamfourhill Tidy Clean and Green campaign, so lets consider if we join all these strands together then we could get something like what the film below illustrates:
Please as always get in touch if you have any comments , ideas or thoughts about the Low Traffic Neighbourhood approach to community safety.
I hope that you may have 5 minutes to spare in order to have a read of this week’s Community Safety Blog. I have highlighted successful community organisations on previous weeks blogs but this week I will focus on a group of local people who have simply decided that they must take their own direct action. Well I say people but in actual fact the star of the show is an energetic and dutiful dog called Lexie. I met up with the group last Tuesday afternoon when they had agreed to take me on a tour of some of the routes and locations that they regularly cover when they are out collecting rubbish and clearing up their immediate local area. This dedication and commitment are exemplary, so we are truly fortunate that they have agreed to actively support the Keep Camelon and Tamfourhill Tidy, Clean and Green campaign.
Lexie in Action
After a short briefing session, we headed along the canal tow path past Lock 14 and down towards Camelon Public Park, this was all new territory for myself, it was a fine day and the tow path was being well used by walkers and cyclists. The level of litter and rubbish was moderate, but I was impressed with the group’s techniques and silky use of the litter pickers, even discarded cigarette butts were skilfully removed and put into the bin bag. The most outstanding contribution however was from Lexie who is so well trained and in tune with the task at hand that she is mega efficient at pulling discarded plastic bottles, crisp pokes, sweetie rappers and discarded cans out from the jaggy bushes and grass verges. In addition to removing the litter we were also mapping out the areas for potential growing spots and for locations that had been badly disfigured by fly -tipping. This was a double-edged sword as we identified an excellent area of the public park for growing a wildflower meadow and a couple of horrific spots piled high with human detritus and industrial sized rubbish. This was a bit of a roller coaster, the ups of the canal and the tow path, green areas for potential community growing and the lows of sizeable dumps of fly tipping and industrial garbage.
An afternoon out for some litter picking
We identified this terrible load of rubbish near Camelon Main Street; however, the Councils Environmental Enforcement Team are onto it and I therefore hope to report a clean up in the next few weeks. Please do report fly tipping if you see it, remember not to interfere with it as there could be evidence of the perpetrators amongst the debris. You can report fly tipping to Falkirk Council at https://my.falkirk.gov.uk/en, if you are having problems with the online process, please do not hesitate to contact myself for some help.
one of the worst cases of fly-tipping that we found
A significant strand of the local Clear Up campaign will be about supporting and building upon the great work that is already undertaken by local people. Nobody asked these particular volunteers to give up their time and dirty their hands with the task of making their neighbourhoods look tidier and cleaner, they have taken that responsibility on for themselves. They care deeply about their local community and are motivated to make a difference and I felt energised and positive after my mapping session with them last week. In addition, since the recent publicity in the Falkirk Herald a number of other volunteers have got in touch and have put themselves forward to assist with the Campaign. I can also report on having very constructive meetings with Falkirk Council Waste Services and I am greatly confident that we can all work together and have a significant impact on improving of the area.
Hard at work making a difference
We are now a Keep Scotland Beautiful Community Hub which means we will be able to support our existing volunteers with improved resources and support and we can also support any groups or individuals who want to organise and run their own litter picks. The Councils new Litter strategy once agreed will also provide us with additional equipment for groups, publicity materials and very importantly Public Liability Insurance. I will also be looking to involve and engage the local schools, youth and community groups and local businesses with the Clear up Campaign. So, if you want to organise your own litter pick then please get in touch with myself, the contact details are below. I can help you plan, provide equipment, support you with some citizen science advice and ensure your litter pick is risk assessed and the paperwork is in place so you and your group are fully covered by the relevant insurance policy. I am hoping that more local people and groups will step up to the mark and contribute and follow in the footsteps of the Union Road Group and a dog calledLexie.
Lexie getting her hard earned reward
Please contact John R Hosie : Community Safety Engager 07391524528 & communitysafetyengager@tamfourhilltro.co.uk
“Millions of small actions by each human being; all the little things we do every day, can surely add up to vast changes over time”
John Muir; Conservationist and ecologist.
The recent responses to the Keep Camelon and Tamfourhill, Tidy , clean and green campaign have been very positive , and its great to be able to thank the various local people who have come forward to volunteer and get involved with clearing up our local community. The recently published article in the Falkirk Herald has been a great boost to the campaign and has encouraged and motivated local people to take up the challenge , get their hands dirty and make a contribution to improving the quality of life for everybody.
I really don’t want to hear that dropping litter is not my responsibility or even worse that I cannot do anything about the litter problem , “what difference can I make ?”, well I refer to the John Muir Quote that headlines this article and in a similar way I would point out that mighty glaciers are made up of individual snowflakes.
I will use this week’s community safety blog to describe the different activities that will be organised as part of the; Tidy, Clean & Green campaign.
Litter Picks: These will be supported through the Clean Up Scotland national hub which will provide the equipment and resources to organise and run effective community litter picks. Different organisations, groups and schools will all be asked to contribute. I am keen to establish champions for different streets and areas and for individuals or small groups to take responsibility for specific localities, whether that’s a street a close or a park. I am also in discussion with Falkirk Council to agree how we can work closely together with their Waste Services Department. We need to encourage behavioural change and by organising a clean up we will be setting the example for others in the community and showing them that it really is possible to make a difference. We will be wearing the bright recycled tabards supplied by Keep Scotland Beautiful so we will be providing a high-profile nudge and reminder to people that littering will not be tolerated by the community.
Litter picking can be an enjoyable and social activity which benefits everyone in the community, including the natural environment.
Developing partnerships: Through contacting local groups, businesses, pubs, and shops we will be able to establish networks of support and the potential to gain sponsorship and greater publicity for our community-based campaign. An important partnership will be with Falkirk Council, but this will also have a very local dimension which will take in the schools, the leisure sector and our transport providers.
smart
Partnerships will be important especially with Falkirk Council
Greening and Growing: The tactics here will be about transforming grot spots into biodiverse areas, or green zones, this can include edible vegetable and herb borders, tasty spaces and pop up parks. These are themes I have touched upon in previous blogs and they will form a central aspect of this campaign. Once we have cleared up an area the best way to sustain that improvement is to reclaim it back for the community as a green leisure or growing space. This can also facilitate new links with local food banks and play a role in combating food poverty and assist with addressing health and wellbeing concerns. I am sure many residents would welcome more seating with some natural greenery around them when they are out going about their business or going for a walk. The potential in this is immense and off course it makes a positive contribution to the climate emergency.
A nice seat with relaxing surroundings
Surveys and information gathering; This takes us into the realms of Citizen Science and can be developed around outdoor learning programmes and encourages us to engage with the natural world around us. Through this approach we can gain insight into how nature works and how we can facilitate improvements for our wild spaces and make them more sustainable. This is more than tree hugging and can involve gathering data which will be useful to other agencies and conservation groups as well as waste management interests. Similarly we will be able to monitor our green areas for invasive species and therefore take action to get them removed or better managed. There is an explicit link here to the school curriculum and other areas of community learning and development. Also essential to this part of the campaign will be the reporting of extreme littering and fly-tipping and getting support from the Council and other agencies through them uplifting bulky items and potentially issue fines. Gathering data can also assist with identifying the most appropriate areas for positioning bins.
Creativity and making some Art: I am sure our colleagues at Camelon Arts will have plenty of groovy ideas for how we can upcycle, recycle, and build sculptures with some of the litter that is gathered. The only constraint in this department will be our imaginations and I look forward to making a load of rubbish art all over Camelon and Tamfourhill. I will also be encouraging younger people to design posters and flyers which provide positive anti littering messages and images and similarly I will be looking to support and develop a social media strategy which mirrors the campaigns activities and also provides positive reinforcing messages about why we must try and keep our community tidy, clean and green.
Promoting Nudge activities: A nudge is an intervention that alters people’s behaviour in a predictable manner, without forcing a particular action onto them. For example, to promote healthy eating, fruit could be placed at eye level in shops or sweets can be removed from the checkouts. Whilst it is not impossible to get the sweets, the emphasis and easiest action is to select the fruit. A nudge then makes the behaviour you want to promote the path of least resistance, without removing the individual’s ability to choose an alternative. Some examples could be to chalk footprints on the pavement showing people to their nearest bin, getting local businesses, charities, or the schools to design and sponsor a colourful bin to make it more obvious to passers-by. I will leave Flash mobs for a future blog, but these might appeal to the younger generation and especially those who regularly use tic-tock or indeed this may also appeal to some of the older hippy generation who are up for a bit of situationist prankster art.
I will conclude for now on that note of having fun through taking part. I will endeavour to make our litter picks an enjoyable experience, it can be creative and can be an outdoor learning activity, it can be this and a whole lot more.
In this week’s community safety blog, I would like to highlight a local success story and it is one that I hope we can build upon and replicate throughout Camelon and Tamfourhill. I was only recently introduced to the Friends of Nailer Park Group who have demonstrated what can be achieved when local people are prepared to take responsibility for their own area and put in some hard and highly creative work. I met the group on a sunny August evening, and they told me about the work they had been involved with and how they had transformed the park. As we were sitting at one of the rainbow painted picnic tables it was very encouraging to see the park being used by a variety of children and adults all enjoying the equipment and the sunshine. This Park is clearly at the heart of community life and it is a great example of a successful community project and it is one which is making a significant contribution to the health and well being of the local people and providing the area with a quality play and recreation facility. The problems with our climate and its negative impacts on our natural environment has also been addressed through the Groups hard work in creating a wildlife hedge, we will see the benefits of this in the years to come. I look forward to attending one of the Groups very successful community events which they regularly run at the Park and which involves loads of local people helping with the organisation and where other local groups and organisations are there to deliver an array of activities and events. I am optimistic that we might be able to host a small community safety event at the Park during the school October holidays, this will off course be dependent upon the COVID situation and may have to wait until later in the year. I think it is worthwhile to stand back and acknowledge the importance of Groups like this, they are the lifeblood of the community and are a forum for further development and success. I am therefore hoping that I will be able to support the group and contribute to the community safety agenda through facilitating new opportunities at the Park. The local Keep Camelon and Tamfourhill Tidy, Clean and Green campaign will be another asset to the Park and the local area and I will be encouraging the Group to link in with our new Clean up Hub and the new litter picking resources which are coming into the area at the end of this week. This new initiative is part of the Keep Scotland Beautiful clean up Scotland campaign and it will see Camelon and Tamfourhill being one of 10 regional hubs spread throughout Scotland. Similarly, the issue of improved security will be looked at so that the Park can be kept safe. Along with other Partner agencies I will also be looking to see how we can better engage with the young people, children and families who currently make use of the Park. My colleague Dan Rous will be working closely with the Group and supporting them to identify new opportunities and resources to further improve and develop both the Park and the Group. I know the Group are extremely disappointed to be losing the support of Dani Lisney from the Communities Along the Carron Association, who is moving onto a new job. Dani has been a long-standing support to the group and will undoubtedly leave a significant gap and one which will be extremely hard to fill. I know however that Dan will be able to take up where Dani has left off and he will continue to support and encourage the Group. A programme of training and group development activities can be organised and I will also be there to assist with progressing the community safety agenda and thus enabling the Group to make the area a safer and happier place to live and work. I hope you enjoy this short slide show of the Groups successes to date and I look forward to a rainbow coloured and sunny future for the Friends of Nailer Park.
You will never plough a field by turning it over in your mind
If you are interested in the Group or would like to contribute to the wider community safety strategy then please do get in touch with myself at communitysafetyengager@tamfourhilltro.co.uk and 07391524528, or leave a comment in the box below.
This week I want to start by offering a big thanks to the 161 local people who completed a community safety survey. The survey closed on the 7th August and I have now been working on collating the data, carrying out some analysis and starting the process of confirming the local community safety priorities. The consultation will now move onto a more interactive phase and once I am able to do so, I will be holding some Focus Groups in order to get further details about the relevant Community Safety issues and the actions we will need to take to address the various concerns. The survey results have provided a clear indication of what are the important issues in the community and where there clearly needs to be positive action. The future will be a success if we are able to involve all sectors of the community and the various organisations to work in partnership and we are able to tackle matters collectively and in a coordinated way. If you are interested in looking at the detailed report with my initial interpretation of the responses, then please visit: https://www.surveymonkey.com/stories/SM-6MCXY5PD/
I know that people don’t have the time to read long detailed reports, although they will be of great assistance when we come to later apply for funding and resources , so I thought I would break the survey results into much smaller sections and highlight a couple of themes each week on the blog, so please go to the link below:
Alone we can do so little: together, we can do so much
Hellen Keller
I am putting out a request in this week’s community safety blog: I need your help and your active participation with making Camelon and Tamfourhill a safer, better, and happier place to live and work. If we are to achieve this bold aspiration, then we will need to recognise the challenges that we face and acknowledge that the best chance of success is if we all come together and work with a common purpose.
The first part of the community safety consultation was concluded on Friday 7th August with the closure of the online survey. I would therefore like to once again offer my congratulations to Jacqueline Hannah on wining the Tablet through the survey Prize draw, and I hope that she gets lots of pleasure and enjoyment from using her new device. I was also incredibly pleased to have 161 completed survey responses, with 92 local people expressing both an interest with being informed about the future plans for community safety and in also taking part in a community action planning day. I therefore will be contacting those relevant individuals to bring them up to date with the results of the survey and inviting them to take part in the next stages of the consultation. It is vitally important that the community safety priorities are identified by the local community and in this respect, it is also critical that local people agree to the appropriate and relevant actions that are necessary, if the local plans and activities are to be successful and effective.
The Kemlin Kin Group are a partnership of local people with representatives from organisations and groups who are already active and delivering services and activities in the local area. I would like to encourage others to join with this Group and therefore take an active role with driving forward the community safety plans for the area and also in supporting the work of the Community Coach Dan Rous with his remit of building the resilience and the capacity of the local area. I fully realise that people get fed up with committees and steering groups and endless talking in meetings, however I would want to assure you that this group will be different. Dan and I will endeavour to make this an enjoyable experience with lots of hands on activities, opportunities to volunteer, learn new skills, develop existing interests, and potentially gain accreditation and recognition for your community involvement. We will also be looking to start up a Young Community Safety Volunteers group and they will get opportunities to learn about peer education and will have loads of activities to get involved with. This approach will be equally concerned with facilitating new support networks and hopefully forming new friendships throughout our neighbourhoods and an important aspect of this group can also be about families coming together for the betterment of the local area. I do not want to be too prescriptive as the agenda and programme of the group would be developed in accordance with the views and ideas of the group themselves, with the support of myself and Dan. The key to the success of this group will be in its ability and effectiveness for putting plans into place and having responsibility for implementing positive change in the local area. Please if you are interested in any way please get in touch with either me or Dan at communitysafetyengager@tamfourhilltro.co.uk or communitycoach@tamfourhilltro.co.uk
I will briefly highlight some of the key findings and indicators of what issues might be community safety priorities for Camelon and Tamfourhill. I will also in the coming weeks go into greater detail about the survey results and focus on specific themes. There are a number of Focus Groups and Workshops that I will be facilitating when it is safe to do so and these activities should assist with putting some meat onto the bones of the results of the survey. The three most significant community safety themes on the survey have been recorded as: Anti-social behaviour, Substance misuse and problems with crime and disorder and traffic/roads. Within these broader themes specific issues have been highlighted, and most notable are the problems of litter, fly -tipping and dog fouling, drug dealing and the consumption of drugs, the level of reoffending are all of considerable concern. The feelings about the fear of crime and a lack of reassurance about community safety issues are noted as being especially important to local people.
I have in previous blogs highlighted some of the possible campaigns and plans that I would hope will be supported locally, these have included: Keep Camelon and Tamfourhill: Tidy, Clean and Green campaign and linked with Keep Scotland Beautiful , similarly we have an active bid to be a community clear up host also with Keep Scotland Beautiful, Restorative justice approaches in dealing with issues around disorder and vandalism, public art projects in partnership with Camelon Arts, promoting bio diversity and sustainability through community gardens, wild flower meadows and edible borders, young community safety volunteers project, the further redevelopment of Easter Carmuirs Park and we are one of the lead groups in a consortium bid for a creative communities grant award from Inspiring Scotland. If you are interested in any of these themes and potential projects then please get in touch, these are the types of initiatives you would be supporting and developing through being a member of the Kemlin Kin Group.
If you want to go quickly, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.
So, what would we consider to be a living street? What gives it life and makes it a vibrant, safe, and sociable place which we all enjoy being about? In this community safety blog, I am going to highlight some of the key features and attributes which can contribute to making our streets alive and safe for everyone in the neighbourhood.
The Covid lockdown has offered us a glimpse into a more greener living environment, there were less motor vehicles and with their decrease in noise and exhaust fumes, we experienced an increase in people and families going out for walks and a similar increase in people travelling by wheels, including bikes, skateboards and scooters. The air was cleaner, the birds chirping much more noticeably, and the grass and undergrowth were left to grow, flourish and bloom without their regular cutting and maintenance. The notion of prioritising pedestrians over cars is seldom a popular approach to designing our streets and shopping areas, people like the convenience of shopping by car and often travelling to shopping centres on the outside of their communities. This however has a negative impact upon the quality of our own streets and in the decrease of local shops catering for local needs and which are often owned and run by local people. The priority when planning and managing our streets always seems to be about how we move cars or motor vehicles about, and marginalised groups are often discriminated against and consequently are excluded from our streets and public places. This effects our older people , those with physical and unseen disabilities and other vulnerable groupings who are discouraged and alienated from walking their streets , going to local shops or hanging about socialising due to the intimidating designs of our streets and the dominance of the motor car. I recently was made aware of the Living Streets Scotland organisation and their Walking connects Project. I learned from them about how our public places often act as barriers to vulnerable groups like those with disabilities and how these so-called public spaces can make individuals and groups feel unsafe. I was made aware of how peoples human rights were being undermined and how they were being discriminated against and in fact how few people actually were aware of how their social spaces were being used to oppress and alienate them.
Our communal spaces can be made safer and less intimidating if we include certain features, for example public seating. This provides a resting spot for those who might not be fully fit due to age or illness. Install benches with some plants and shrubs then we have created a comfortable social area, people will feel safer and they know they can rest and not be harassed and stressed as they go about their daily business. Clearly, we need to ensure that local people are involved with the design of their public spaces and this must be an inclusive process. Those whose needs are currently discriminated against need to be brought into this process as a priority and they will require support and positive encouragement to engage and participate effectively with that design process.
We often think back with nostalgia to when we could safely play football in the street, children were not at risk from motor cars and it was commonplace for people to gather and socialise at street corners. The motor car is here to stay so the main challenge now in making our streets alive and safe is how we manage the tension that exists between cars and people. How do we negotiate a positive outcome from this conflict which could convert our streets back to being the focus of our communities? A solution might be to agree days when cars are not allowed on certain streets and these spaces can then be converted into social and community spaces. This approach has been successfully developed and deployed by the Living Streets Organisation, with their pop up parks and Parklets. This can then be progressed through including mobile sports equipment and possibly a performance area and providing a temporary meeting construction with seats and cover from the weather.
What is a Pop-Up Park ?
Beyond the pop-up parks and mobile social spaces, we can convert some of our litter and fly tipping hot spots into biodiverse planting areas or redevelop them into edible borders. This is an approach that I would like to develop as part of our Keep Camelon and Tamfourhill Tidy, Clean and Green campaign. This approach would take us beyond the litter picking and clearance of industrial refuse stage and onto making a positive contribution to addressing the climate emergency and provide a relaxed and enjoyable place to sit and socialise with your family and neighbours.
I believe that this approach and these examples are achievable locally, I would acknowledge that they are not a quick remedy to the issues, but they are a sustainable and viable approach. I would welcome your comments and thoughts on these ideas so please leave any opinions or thoughts in the boxes below, or contact myself directly at:
Repairing the Harm and rebuilding relationships in the community.
In this week’s Community Safety Blog I want to touch very briefly upon 2 interrelated methods or approaches which could be relevant to our own local community safety strategy. Firstly is Restorative Justice, this has many and varied definitions depending upon the context and the agency or service which is utilising the approach. The Scottish restorative justice consultancy process facilitated by the Scottish Government describes this model as: “being a voluntary process that engages those responsible for and harmed by a criminal offence in constructive dialogue about the harm caused and what can be done to set things right.” This then is a model that can be deployed in a variety of contexts, including: Youth Justice, problematic environmental circumstances, within schools and other educational settings and in addressing anti-social behaviour. My attention was drawn to a recent act of local vandalism that involved some garden furniture being broken. After the culprits voluntarily owned up, they were given an opportunity to repair the damage and enter dialogue with the victims of the breakage. The young people responsible are now carrying out some voluntary work with the organisation who were affected by the initial vandalism. A positive outcome then for everyone involved, a common understanding reached, and a resolution was found that has avoided the involvement of the police and the criminal justice system and indeed any punitive measures and is a win, win for everyone. The key feature to this process has been empathy, all parties are able to consider how it might have felt for the others effected by their actions and also in this case the clients of the organisation where the vandalism happened. A better level of understanding has been facilitated and an appreciation for the value of others and sometimes the challenges they face has been reached. This is an approach which could be more widely deployed locally, we potentially could adapt and adopt a restorative method when agreeing our action plans to addressing the local community safety priorities. Clearly a working agreement would be required by all the agencies , stakeholders and the local community, before this approach could be viable. SACRO have described using Restorative Acceptable Behaviour Contracts in appropriate circumstances with the aim “to address offending behaviour in a way which empowers the people harmed, those responsible and wider community members to resolve the conflict in a meaningful way” Another significant feature is that the person responsible is given an opportunity to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. The person affected for example by the anti-social behaviour or Offence can also have some say as to how the case is resolved and where relevant and appropriate the wider community can be involved with the dialogue.
The essence therefore of Restorative Justice is to make a positive contribution to community safety through using constructive methods of addressing anti-social behaviour and Offending behaviour. The underlying principles are that crime causes harm and that justice should focus on repairing that harm and the people most affected by the crime should be able to participate in its resolution. Restorative methods are imbedded to the notion that the community is responsible for the wellbeing of all its members both victim and offender.
And so to the second strand I want to highlight and which can be described as Environmental Restorative Justice and this has been described as: “being a philosophy much more than a set of techniques for doing justice for the environment in a more relational, more emotionally intelligent fashion. It is about healing earth systems and healing the relationship of humans with nature and with each other.”(earthrestorativejustice.org) OK that sounds a bit like tree huggers jargon but in terms of our local community safety strategy it can be relevant to how we go about tackling our litter and fly-tipping problems. If we view the locations that are litter or messy hot spots as areas of environmental damage, then we can implement restorative projects like turning them into wildflower meadows or edible borders or convert them to community vegetable plots. The solution to clearing these locations can become more than a group litter pick or getting the council to remove industrial sized refuse that has been dumped in the community. Potentially it can develop into an environmental project, encouraging biodiversity, reclaiming lost land, and contributing to greater community cohesion and the sense of feeling safe. I have also been looking into Parklets and Pop up Parks which can be deployed to different locations throughout the community and provide a safe and enjoyable place for local people to meet and socialise. Another pertinent example is from Keep Scotland Beautiful who run an annual competition called “it’s your neighbourhood” where groups develop a project which must address the three pillars of: Community Participation, Environmental responsibility and gardening achievement, the winners get £13,000 for their project. Getting involved in Projects like these can be an empowering process and enables us as a community to contribute to the climate emergency and make our neighbourhoods a safer and better place to live and work.
A worrying trend highlighted in the survey results has been the level of concern raised about substance misuse and in particular drug dealing. 73% of respondents have indicated that they are either greatly or fairly concerned about drug dealers. This presents an enormous challenge for the local community safety strategy and requires the attention of our statutory services, voluntary & community organisations, and the problematic drug users themselves. The conundrum between supply and demand will continue at both a prevention and at an enforcement level whilst also acknowledging that the manifestations of the selling and purchasing of drugs are many and complex. Where a local community led safety strategy can play a significant role can be with the prevention of our young people getting drawn into problematic drug use in the first instance. This may be achieved through supporting and developing in partnership with them, appropriate educational resources and prevention activities through providing youth work approaches that promote resilience, social skills and the confidence for our young people to make the right choices in often difficult and challenging circumstances. There can be a role for Falkirk Council and our local community hubs with delivering quality youth work provision and there can be direct workshop inputs and projects delivered by community volunteers and the community safety engager It would be naïve to expect the demand for dangerous drugs to reduce in the short term through a programme of education and preventative activities however this requires to be an important strand to any strategy that is developed with the local community.
Finding oneself in a situation where you have developed a problematic dependency upon drugs must be devastating for the user, their family, friends, neighbours and indeed the local community. The social costs of drug dependency are significant: through the legal and criminal costs and through the impact upon our health and care services. The emotional and mental health impacts will resonate beyond the user and will have negative effects upon others through the dealing of the drugs and the consumption of the drugs within the local community. Clearly a local strategy will need to take into consideration these associated factors. I will therefore endeavour to involve the specialist drugs agencies, Falkirk Council and also charities like the Cyrenians and SACRO who carry out invaluable work locally with people touched by the criminal justice system and through providing support to those with dependency and ongoing offending problems. I feel we need to be able to see beyond the labels and stigmatisation of being involved with problematic drug use and simultaneously living often challenging and chaotic lifestyles. We need to be able to actively involve everybody with the solutions to making our community a safer and better place to live and work.
Any local Community Safety Strategy addressing this concern will be reliant upon the enforcement of the law. This will represent a significant strand to reducing the negative impacts of local drug misuse and the problems arising directly from the selling of drugs. I have been in communication with the local community police officers and clearly, they will play a key role with developing and confirming our local strategy. I can see from the SIMD data for the local neighbourhoods where the problems are likely to be and I believe that there are specific locations that are of local concern. Off course the Police rely upon the reporting of crime and I understand that this is an extremely sensitive and complex issue. I fully appreciate why local people may be reluctant to report issues relating to drug misuse, especially if it involves your immediate neighbours and places you go and use yourself.
How effective is CCTV ?
The challenge ahead is significant and fraught with problems, however with the right partners involved and crucially the willingness of the local community to get involved then we can implement an effective community safety strategy that will address some of the local concerns about substance misuse. An important aspect of this will be to form and possibly constitute a local community safety forum which has local people , community groups and agencies all working together in order to develop programmes and activities which will go some way to addressing the local priorities for community safety. I will look at this notion of a local community safety forum in a future blog but again this approach will only be effective if it is driven forward by the local community for the local community.
To conclude this week’s Blog I will highlight the work of an organisation called Fearless, I believe some of their approaches and community based initiatives can be replicated locally and can be adapted and adopted to our own particular set of circumstances. What we often see as problems can become part of the solution and the resources and skills to deal with issues at a community level often lie within that community itself.
Please could you complete a local survey, the responses are of great assistance in identifying and confirming the local community safety priorities and our future activity will be developed around these priorities. If you complete a survey by Friday 7th August, then you can be entered into our prize draw and you can win yourself a brand-new Tablet.
Safer Communities Youth Action Project 